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Flavin had a special admiration for the Russian artist Vladimir Tatlin’s proposed design for the Monument to the Third International, a revolving spiral that would have been taller than the Eiffel Tower. Like all Flavin’s sculptures, this work was made using pre-fabricated fluorescent tubes. He described it as a ‘monument’ partly as a joke, aware of the disparity between its modest materials and the traditional grandeur of monumental sculpture.